I'm kind of breaking an unwritten rule of mine here. Up until now I've avoided making lovers useful in any way to keep them strictly optional, but it was kind of a shame to have that whole system in place to produce no tangible result, and if anything it was punishing players that did choose to pursue romance, as it took away their valuable turns. This won't be so anymore in the following release.
Players "Interested in None" will get a free -1 Weariness per turn, because they don't have to worry about relationships, and -1 Local Tension per turn, because they are not dating anybody's ex, or whatever.
Players with an interest for any gender, meanwhile, will now have a chance to profit from their relationships in a series of ways. Wooing will take place as usual, but it will lower your Weariness slightly and might occasionally be accompanied by a message with the relationship's status and the effects it has on you.
Sticking close to someone popular might earn you Merits, sticking close to rich people will get you money, scary people will lower local tension for you and so on. All lovers will get several flavour lines explaining the reason for these bonuses.
Overall however, this won't be an easy path to richness and fame. There is basically a 50% chance that the lover will misbehave or cause you trouble in some manner. Among other things, it might be unpopular for you to stick to that particular lover, or he or she might simply be after your money. Whenever a negative effect takes place, you'll be given the chance to dump said lover.
Occasionally, you'll stumble upon the perfect lover that never gives you any trouble, but more often than not they'll always have some negative aspect, the chance with which positive or negative outcomes happen will be randomized each time you start wooing a character. Characters with which you maintain a relationship will tend to normalize over time and tend to cause positive outcomes more often, which will allow for some progression. This will however happen at a very slow pace, and waiting for things to get better will not even be worth it in many cases.
So basically, you'll be playing slots when you choose a lover, just like in real life!
What about the possibility of sending a unit to spy on them to figure out if they're likely to cause problems, with the chance of the lover finding out and calling off the relationship?
ReplyDeleteI could see something like that working, but only sometime in the future when there is more espionage and intrigue involved in the game.
DeletePerhaps bad lovers could raise a few red flags before actually causing problems for now though.